I will come round and give you a word to work on. Read the whole post first.
Please find out how that word has been used in different contexts across time (diachronic change) and how it is used now (detect any synchronic change happening, tentatively). The following bullet-pointed list should form part of the blog post you work on today (not necessarily in that order), summing up what you have found (finish it by next Tuesday's lesson - we will be using it in class). It should clearly talk the reader through an engaging analysis of the uses of that word and should be helpfully structured and thoughtful/tentative:
- an observation about the Ngram viewer report of your word (Google 'Ngram' and work it out)
- quotes from different times with that word in use in them. Comment on these to show understanding of the connections and contrasts in terms of the semantic and pragmatic understanding created/needed and interpret how that writer or speaker's lexical choice (of that word) fits in with the APF/time, using terminology, especially Language Change terminology.
- a variety of idioms, slogans or famous uses of that word with comments about the different nuances of meaning that these uses might have
- any words you can link/contrast with the word you have been given
- anything else that you would like to include
NB find out what Ngram can tell you and how to find your way around it. Please do not re-present info from Wikipedia to form the main part of your work - find out what you can by genuine, interested investigation using your imagination to find what you need - I don't mean don't look Wikipedia at some point (not first!) but do try and come up with very different info.
List of words:
love
short
want
nice
silly
bank
penny
crunk
window
edit
shave
doctor
boy
pad
drive
moniotr
wicked
gross
lady
game
cheat
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